The email industry has been around for more than a decade.  In that time, industry leaders have done a great job of creating best practices for marketers to follow to ensure the success of their email marketing campaigns.  It’s amazing to me, then, that so many email bad emails continue to be sent.

In my inbox today, I’ve received three emails from one marketer, two emails that showed nothing but an ad above the fold, and a daily email that I really only want to receive once a week.

I know that we can do better than this.  As a first step to getting us on track, I have created a list of offensive emails.  Do you see your emails on this list?

To find out the 7 emails you shouldn’t be sending, click here.

For more information about the best practices for sending your emails, please contact Delivra today and we can help!

Carissa Newton | Marketing

For those of us that have not been hiding under a rock, you’ve probably witnessed the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, where Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White (my personal favorite), and Larry the Cable Guy put on a comedy act that has entertained the masses.  One of the more infamous segments of their act is the “You might be a redneck if…” piece.

If you have, you’ll recognize my spin off: You might need an email makeover if…

• You do not have a strong call to action in the email telling your readers the next step you’d like them to take.  A strong call to action should be placed in the email subject line that also shows up in the preview pane.  In the content of the email, there should also be a hyperlink to the call of action.
• You are using too many pictures and not enough text.  Sometimes all your pictures won’t load and you want to make sure people aren’t losing the message because they can’t see all of it.  Put enough words in your content so that people can understand the message without the pictures!
• You haven’t considered how it looks on mobile devices.  Many people are checking their email on mobile devices, so shouldn’t you be considering how your emails look to them?
• You haven’t inserted social media links into your email marketing campaign. So many people are involved in the social media world, you want to make sure you give them the opportunity to share your emails or parts of your emails to their followers and friends.

So, I have to ask…are you guilty of making some of these email marketing mistakes?  If so, DON’T PANIC!  Delivra can help!

Lucky for you, Delivra has launched its first ever Extreme Email Makeover Contest and you still have time to participate because the contest doesn’t close until July 31st.  That gives you plenty of time to upload your email designs.

Don’t forget what you could win! If the winner is a current client of Delivra, they will receive a custom made, sophisticated email template placed into their established account for use in future mailings.  If the winner is not a Delivra client, they will receive one custom designed email template, one hour of email strategy consultation, access to Delivra 101 and 201, and a 90 day trial account.

So, don’t be embarrassed if you have a terrible email design, enter it in the Delivra Extreme Email Makeover Contest and save yourself!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

In business, mistakes are bound to happen and the TPE blog this week highlights some of those common mistakes.  But, it also highlights several people’s insights and suggestions  on how to avoid them as well.  Our very own Director of Marketing at Delivra, Carissa Newton was cited and gave her opinion on a rather popular mistake made.

Although this blog is mostly focused on reaching those trying to start a business or have recently started a business it can be a great resource for all. Who doesn’t want to know of some common mistakes to avoid?!

To read more of the Biggest Business Mistakes to Avoid, click here!

Here at Delivra, we are excited to announce to our faithful readers that we’ve been selected by customer relationship manager (CRM) solution provider AddressTwo as its integrated email service provider.

AddressTwo is a great company that provides small businesses with technology and processes for managing sales, marketing and productivity.  With more than 1,200 users, the company eschews call center support and instead partners with local companies to provide hands-on support and a unique customer experience to small businesses.

“Delivra is a great choice for us because we have very similar customer service philosophies,” said Nick Carter, president of AddressTwo.  “I know that the Delivra email platform is reliable and I feel good knowing that I can talk to a real person at Delivra immediately if I need to.”

To read more about the Delivra and AddressTwo partnership, please click here to go to the full press release available on the Delivra website!

In yesterday’s blog post, we introduced the non-profit winner of the Infuse Initiative business grant.  Today, we’re going to introduce this year’s small business winner – Professional Conventions & Meetings (ProCaM).

ProCaM is a meeting and event planning and management company.  Working locally, nationally and internationally, they specialize in corporate meetings, sales incentive trips, educational seminars and training events, association and fraternal conventions, trade shows, government meetings, special events and motor sports hospitality.  The company was formed in 2000 and is a certified woman – owned business enterprise.

“We are happy to be part of the Infuse Initiative,” said Neil Berman, president & CEO of Delivra. “Effective communications is crucial to a growing company. We are glad that we will be able to help ProCaM communicate with their customers, prospects and other audiences with sophisticated email solutions.”

As mentioned before, you’ll want to stay tuned to future Delivra news because we’ll be offering case studies on both Infuse Initiative winners!  You’ll want to see how the Delivra software was able to help these companies with their email marketing efforts.

In an earlier blog post, we announced the winners of the Infuse Initiative, a business grant program.  In the next couple of blog posts, we’d like to take the time to introduce the winners in more detail for those of you interested in learning more about them!

Today’s blog post is highlighting the Indianapolis Early Learning Center, this year’s non-profit Infuse Initiative winner.  Indianapolis Early Learning Center, located at 3901 West 30th Street, Indianapolis, is a non-profit preschool that invests in a successful future for all preschool-age children, regardless of their socioeconomic status.  The school accomplishes this by ensuring that all families have access to the best early childhood education programs to prepare their children for school and for life.

The Infuse Initiative business grant also provides them with pro-bono marketing, technology, accounting, legal and sales training services.  Delivra will provide the Indianapolis Early Learning Center a free email software subscription, professional services and technical support for one year to improve their email marketing efforts.

Amanda Byrd

“Recently, I was able to attend the event announcing and congratulating the winners of the Infuse Initiative.  I had the opportunity to sit next to Amanda Byrd, the Founder & Executive Director of the preschool.  She seemed extremely grateful to be receiving the award and has big plans for the future and I can’t wait to see what she does!” said Lavon Temple, Marketing Intern at Delivra.

Stay tuned to the Delivra blog for more information on the other Infuse Initiative winner – Professional Conventions & Meetings.

Also, keep a look out for more news as we eventually share a case study and more details on how the Delivra and Indianapolis Early Learning Center teams were able to work together in order to improve their email marketing efforts.

TPE is a blog that is dedicated to offering tips and information to those interested in entrepreneurial strategies.  The blog is a compilation of business professionals opinion’s on a certain topic.  Carissa Newton, the Director of Marketing for Delivra, has contributed her own insights to the blog on several occasions.  The most recent is for the topic – How to Measure Success in Your Business.

Measuring success in your business is important in being able to project where your business is going in the future.  The How to Measure Success in Your Business blog offers strategies to help show you how to measure that success.

To read more, click here!

Here is how the story goes: An excited marketer begins an e-mail marketing program anticipating a large list of engaged subscribers.  She sends off e-mail after e-mail.  Then reality hits.  Her unsubscribe rates skyrocket and she is left bewildered and asking why.

The answer is simple: She forgot the subscriber.

To read more of this BtoB Magazine article, click here!

For further information about the best ways to honor an email recipients’ preferences, contact Delivra today!

Carissa Newton | Director of Marketing

Early last year, around the time of Delivra’s ten-year anniversary, we went shopping for a new mail transfer agent (MTA) technology partner to help sustain our growth for the next ten years.  We knew that our email sending volume was only going to increase over time, but we were still surprised, in December of 2009, to see how suddenly growth could occur.  That month, with the addition of new clients plus seasonal increases in emailing by our existing customers, our mailing volume jumped by 60% over previous highs!

That dramatic increase made us feel even better about our decision, just a few months earlier, to implement Message Systems’ Momentum.  Our previous MTA would not have handled that kind of rapid growth.  But with Momentum as the engine powering our email, we didn’t miss a beat, and delivered a record number of messages.  In fact, we’ve eclipsed that monthly record volume several times since then.

Our experience with Momentum has been so positive that Message Systems featured Delivra in a recent case study!

Click here to read the entire article.

Chris Broshears | Product Development